“Is Beth the rosy one, who stays at home a good deal, and sometimes goes out with a little basket?”
—Little Women
Most would-be Beths followed a standard formula. A faint cough, some handkerchief choreography, a hurricane of piteous sighs. Speaking above a whisper was unheard of, though they got plenty loud when it was time to fake cry. The only prop we provided was a bare wooden chair, which the Beths struggled to slump across like a deathbed. More rarely a would-be Beth might stagger in and announce she was back from visiting the poor, sad Hummel children and “suddenly . . . I feel . . . so strange . . . cold . . . and damp . . . so tired . . .”
And crash. Down she went.
Other aspiring Beths took the “scarlet fever” part literally, wearing so much blush it looked like they were seconds from heatstroke.
This year we got a “Mama! I see a bright light!” right out of the gate, followed by a girl who choked so hard at the sight of Laurie that I thought we were going to have to Heimlich her. The next one came out in barely there dancewear, a marked contrast to the usual floor-length nightgowns, and proceeded to writhe her way through a modern-dance routine full of reaching arms and falling to her knees.
“Well.” Mom made a note on the audition form. “She seems very flexible.”
“I wonder if she does tap?” Andrea murmured.
The fourth wannabe Beth was notable mainly for her accent.
“Why is she pretending to be British?” Amy hissed.
“Oim a chimney sweep, oi am,” Laurie put in, sounding like he’d watched Mary Poppins one too many times.
There was a long silence after Cockney Beth left the stage, presumably to go have tea and crumpets with the queen.
“Are we done?” I asked hopefully.
“There should be one more.” Frowning, Mom sifted through the stack of audition forms. “Ah,” she said, setting down the paperwork as the door opened. “Here we go.”
The fifth Beth brought her own props, carrying in a cardboard box painted to look like a wooden trunk. After kicking the chair out of the way, she sat on the floor with her fake toy chest between her legs.
“Don’t worry, dolly.” She gently lifted a headless plastic baby from the box. “I’ll fix you.”
Her voice was higher than expected from someone built like a WNBA forward, but it didn’t tremble, or turn all breathy and phlegmy. Points for originality. She set down the doll body, pulled a threaded needle from a pincushion, and held it between her teeth while she dug a teddy-bear head from her box.
“The doll hospital,” I explained to Hudson, in case he hadn’t recognized what was a fairly obscure bit in the book. “Beth likes to fix sad, broken things.”
As she began sewing the fuzzy bear face onto the humanoid body, he held up his phone to take a picture, positioning it in front of him like a shield.
“Interesting,” Andrea murmured, scribbling in her notebook.
Amy stuck out her tongue. “Too bad she can’t fix herself.”
Laurie pointed at her. “Irony.”
“I love my family,” Beth sang. “I keep them with me always.”
We all stared in fascination as she rocked the bear-headed baby in her arms.
“Good night, Marmee,” she whispered, kissing the fuzzy forehead before placing it back in the box. “Hello, Jo,” she greeted the next creation, a glassy-eyed baby-doll head that had been grafted onto the body of a Transformer. “You’re so fierce.”
Amy snorted.
“Oh, look, it’s Amy.” Beth barely raised her voice as she held up a decapitated Raggedy Ann. She rummaged in the box until she came up with a Barbie head. “Empty inside,” she sighed, squinting into the neck. “Oh well.”
“Mom!” Amy smacked the table with both hands.
“I like her,” I said, as Beth crooned another creepy lullaby.
Laurie sniffed loudly, like he was holding back tears, provoking a scowl from Amy. “It’s just so sad,” he whispered. I knew he was sensitive, but you’d think some of the sting of watching Beth bite it would have worn off by now. It was practically an everyday occurrence in these parts. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Can’t somebody get this kid a new toy?”
Beth arranged her dolls in the box and closed the flaps. “Good night, little family,” she sang in her eerie soprano, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “All together, safe and sound, forever.” She raised her head to stare at us as she trilled the last line. “None of you will ever leave me.”
“Is she going to kill us?” Hudson asked me.
“That would be a twist.”
“She’s not interesting.” Amy jabbed a hand at Beth, who had collapsed over her box in what looked like child’s pose. “Can’t you see she’s manipulating you all?” She crossed her arms, refusing to clap as Beth stood and brushed off her skirt before taking a bow.
When she had taken her toys and gone home, Mom turned to us with a blissed-out smile. “At least the choice is simple this year.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Amy lied.
“The dolls! And her death rattle!” Mom said, like that would jog her memory. “So affecting!”
“But she didn’t do the death scene.” Amy looked at me to make sure I didn’t know something she didn’t.
“Not today, of course,” Mom agreed. “I saw it before. At Price Saver.”
I was still trying to imagine how this might have played out—deli counter? Frozen-food aisle?—when Laurie asked, “Is she a cashier?”
Because that would explain it. Is this romaine? And by the way, do you want to watch my Dying Beth act?
“Possibly. I do know she was carrying a bag of oranges. It fell during the whole . . .” Mom fluttered her fingers, like we could all fill in the blank. Hudson cut his eyes at me.
“Can you maybe finish that thought, Mom?”
“When she showed me how she would play Beth’s farewell. Right there at the cart return. With a lone orange rolling across the asphalt.” She stretched out an arm, fingers slowly uncurling.
“That’s nothing!” With a grunt, Amy hauled herself across the table, spinning to face us. “You want edgy? You want twisted?”
“No.” It was the easiest question I’d ever had to answer.
“Um,” said Laurie, trying to balance out my snark. “Sometimes?”
That was all the encouragement she needed. “It’s over for you hoes now.” She clapped her hands like cymbals. “Picture this. I’m young, hot, and winsome. Not that different from what’s in front of you.”
I sighed like I was blowing out birthday candles.
“Only I’m also timid and demure, so you can tell just by looking at me that I have a tragic backstory. Classic governess arc.” Amy pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “O woe is me! Though I am virtuous and sweet, I have fallen on hard times!” Dropping the act, she circled a hand in the air. “Your hearts melt, I work my way under your skin, et cetera.”
“Like a Silence of the Lambs thing?” Laurie guessed.
She held a finger to her lips. “Next thing you know, everyone is in love with me. I’m just that good.”
“Is she doing her affirmations?” I asked, earning a helpless shrug from our mother.
“As I was saying”—Amy raised her voice to drown out the commentary—“no one can resist my charms, especially when I sing like a nightingale in my lilting Scottish brogue.”
“Please don’t.” I covered my ears, just in case.
“But then!” Amy swept an arm backwards and forward, like she was clearing cobwebs out of her way.
“Uh-oh,” Laurie intoned, genuinely caught up in the performance.
“I go to my room at night, where no one can see. First I take off my hairpiece.” Amy mimed ripping off her bangs. “Then I spit out my false teeth.” With a liquid pluh she coughed into her cupped hand. “I wash off the makeup that makes me look young and girlish.” She flicked her fingers at either cheek. Straightening, she stared at her unwilling audience for an uncomfortably long moment. “Guess what.”
“What?” Laurie asked, like he was afraid not to.
“It turns out I’ve been fooling you all. I’m not a sweet young maiden wronged by a cruel world; I’m a homely thirty-year-old actress with a drinking problem!” She mimed glugging from an invisible flask.
Mom’s mouth worked like she wanted to protest but had lost the ability to make words. Amy hurried on.
“Before the haters can expose my secret, I marry their rich old uncle. Title, estate, and a husband who probably won’t be around much longer—they’re all mine, because all I do is win.” She dropped into a bow.
We sat in weirded-out silence until Amy raised her head to scowl at us, at which point Laurie clapped.
“Mom,” I stage-whispered. “I think she finally cracked.”
“That was not from the book,” Hudson confirmed, glancing at me. I didn’t blame him for the confusion. It felt like the air had been pumped full of hallucinogens.
“Hello?” Amy’s pout was visible from space. “Am I the only one who knows how to do interlibrary loans? Behind a Mask. Ring any bells? It’s one of Alcott’s best stories. Totally effed-up and awesome. Exactly the kind of thing Jo March wanted to write, before Professor Un-Bhaer-able crapped on her dreams.”
“Good for you, doing background research!” You could tell that what Mom really meant was That’s enough.
Sighing, my sister subsided. I knew the reprieve was temporary. One day she’d find a way to force “the spicy side” of Louisa May down all our throats; it was just a matter of wearing Mom down. Because what Amy really needed was an excuse to overact even more.
“Excuse me,” said Doll Hospital Beth, who had slipped back through the door like a shadow. She waited until every eye was trained in her direction. A slight teeter to the left, a wobble to the right, and then crash! A sudden collapse into a boneless heap. The open eyes were a particularly effective touch. If this was how she’d dropped in the Price Saver parking lot, I had to admire her commitment.
Amy looked outraged even before Laurie leaped to his feet, clapping and whistling.
“And scene,” Andrea quipped, closing her notebook.